page_title: Noronha skink
section_title: 21st century
hierarchical_section_title: Noronha skink / Discovery and taxonomy / 21st century
caption_attribution_description: English: Head of the lizard en:Trachylepis maculata, lectotype (Miralles et al., 2009, caption to fig. 7).
context_page_description: The Noronha skink is a species of skink from the island of Fernando de Noronha off northeastern Brazil. It is covered with dark and light spots on the upperparts and is usually about 7 to 10 cm in length. The tail is long and muscular, but breaks off easily. Very common throughout Fernando de Noronha, it is an opportunistic feeder, eating both insects and plant material, including nectar from the Erythrina velutina tree, as well as other material ranging from cookie crumbs to eggs of its own species. Introduced predators such as feral cats prey on it and several parasitic worms infect it.
  Perhaps seen by Amerigo Vespucci in 1503, it was first formally described in 1839. Its subsequent taxonomic history has been complex, riddled with confusion with Trachylepis maculata and other species, homonyms, and other problems. The species is classified in the otherwise mostly African genus Trachylepis and is thought to have reached its island from Africa by rafting. The enigmatic Trachylepis tschudii, supposedly from Peru, may well be the same species.
context_section_description: In 2002, P. Mausfeld and D. Vrcibradic published a note on the nomenclature of the Noronha skink informed by a re-examination of Gray's original type specimens; despite extensive attempts to correctly name the species, they were apparently the first to do so since Boulenger in 1887. Based on differences in the number of scales, subdigital lamellae (lamellae on the lower sides of the digits), and keels (longitudinal ridges) on the dorsal scales (located on the upperparts), as well as the separation of the parietal scales (on the head behind the eyes) in maculata, they concluded that the two were not, after all, identical, and that Schmidt's name Mabuya atlantica should therefore be used. Mausfeld and Vrcibradic considered Mabouya punctatissima to represent a different species on the basis of morphological differences, but were unable to resolve the status of Trachylepis (Xystrolepis) punctata.
  In the same year, Mausfeld and others conducted a molecular phylogenetic study on the Noronha skink, using the mitochondrial 12S and 16S rRNA genes, and showed that the species is more closely related to African than to South American Mabuya species, as previously suggested on the basis of morphological similarities. They split the old genus Mabuya into four genera for geographically discrete clades, including Euprepis for the African–Noronha clade, thus renaming the Noronha species to Euprepis atlanticus. In 2003, A.M. Bauer found that the name Euprepis had been incorrectly applied to this clade and that Trachylepis was correct instead, so that the Noronha skink is currently referred to as Trachylepis atlantica. Additional molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2003 and 2006 confirmed the relationship between the Noronha skink and African Trachylepis.
  In 2009, Miralles and others reviewed the taxon maculata and concluded that the animal now known as Trachylepis maculata also belongs in the African clade, but they were unable to determine whether or not it is indigenous to Guyana. They also reviewed Trachylepis (Xystrolepis) punctata and replaced it with Trachylepis tschudii because the older name was preoccupied by Linnaeus's and Gray's punctata. Although they were unable to resolve the identity of T. tschudii, which is still known from a single specimen, they believed that it is most likely the same species as the Noronha skink; it may be either a representative of an undiscovered Amazonian population of the latter or simply a mislabeled animal from Fernando de Noronha.
caption: Trachylepis maculata has long been confused with the Noronha skink.[19]
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